The entities known as the Beings of Old have long since staked claims to most of that gem-shaped manifold which is existence. Their alien, furtive, and impenetrably distant politicking has ebbed and flowed throughout past ages, beyond the awareness of most thinking creatures . . . and recently, it has begun to accelerate. For Sebastio Artaxerxes—and many civilians outside reality’s facets, especially in the transcendent city of Rhaagm—interest in such matters becomes far more pressing after a madman decides to claim a relic of one of the Olds. Sebastio’s demons tell him that fighting the man he once called friend will only end in tears. His soul tells him that tears are only shed by the living, and that the living at least may overcome regrets with time and effort.

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Mar 9, 2019: IN SHORT: The laws of space-time state that the denser an object is, the more it draws someone in. The rules of writing, however, state the opposite. Case in point: The Simulacrum of Dread is dense to the point of being impenetrable.

IN LONG: One of my favorite novels is Blindsight by Peter Watts. In it, an alien species receives transmissions from Earth but cannot make sense of them, the transmissions being packed with too much information they cannot understand. Unable [more . . .]

Mar 8, 2019: The author of The Simulacrum of Dread knows what he’s talking about when he describes it as "quite emphatically not for everyone”. Let me expand on that. If you love aliens, morally conflicted heroes with supernatural powers, quests for mythical swords, power struggles that “dwarf words as simple as ‘cosmic,’” and/or vampires, it may be for you. If you love those things in the context of an easily-digestible narrative that gets right to the point, run for your life. If you love intricate world-building rife with metaphysical imagination above all [more . . .]